A leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party was given medical treatment and then taken to a hospital shortly before he was due to speak at an election rally in Bavaria on Wednesday, police said, according to The Associated Press.
There were few details about what exactly happened at the event in Ingolstadt, but the party said that Tino Chrupalla, one of its two co-leaders, was hospitalized following what it called a “violent incident”. No further details on his condition were provided.
According to the party, the incident happened in a crowd shortly before he was due to speak.
A police statement Wednesday evening said that Chrupalla had to be given medical treatment backstage at about 4:30 p.m. and was then taken to a hospital, but “an obvious injury was not apparent at that time.” It did not give more details on the treatment or what was thought to have happened.
The statement added that police were investigating to determine “the precise circumstances of this medical incident.” It urged people who took photos and videos at the event to make them available to police.
Chrupalla, 48, has been one of the party's two leaders since 2019. The other co-leader is Alice Weidel.
AfD, which was formed in 2013, entered Germany’s national parliament with 12.6% of the vote in 2017. The party has a history of controversial statements, particularly surrounding the Holocaust. Hoecke caused a firestorm in February of 2017 when he suggested that Germany should end its decades-long tradition of acknowledging and atoning for its Nazi past.
AfD chairman Alexander Gauland in 2018 described the Nazi period as a mere "speck of bird poo in over 1,000 years of successful German history".
He had previously asserted, however, that Jews should not fear the strong election showing by AfD and indicated that he was ready to meet with German Jewish leaders “at any time.”
Earlier this year, AfD won a local election for the first time, when Robert Sesselmann, a lawyer and regional lawmaker, won the election for district administrator in Sonneberg in the central state of Thuringia.
In July, the party notched up another first when its candidate was elected a full-time mayor of the small town of Raguhn-Jessnitz, in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt.